


talkin' in my sleep at night, makin' myself crazy

by narryblossom



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, M/M, Strangers to Friends to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-29
Updated: 2018-01-29
Packaged: 2019-03-11 05:23:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13517460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/narryblossom/pseuds/narryblossom
Summary: Harry talks and sings in his sleep and Niall thinks its really funny until Harry starts telling him secrets and then Niall doesn’t know what to do.





	talkin' in my sleep at night, makin' myself crazy

**Author's Note:**

> vaguely...inspired...by my roommate...telling me i was singing in my sleep last week... [find me here on tumblr](http://narryblossom.tumblr.com)

Niall has always thought himself the calculated-adventurous type; he isn’t afraid to take a few risks on shoddy restaurants so long as there are no recent cases of food poisoning, and when his roommate ditches him for an off-campus apartment with his girlfriend, Niall doesn’t mind letting the university decide who he next roommate will be (so long as they mostly fit a compatibility profile that Niall sends in along with his roommate application).

Into Niall’s life walks Harry Styles, tall, clumsy on his own feet, and _way_ too cute for his own good.

“Thanks for letting me room with you,” he says to Niall immediately after introducing himself. He goes in for a handshake, even, and Niall thinks it’s a bit weird but leans into it anyway.

“Well I sure as hell wasn’t gonna pay for a single,” Niall smirks. His jokes lands well enough with Harry who chuckles and runs his hand through his messy hair. Niall stares at it when Harry turns to leave the room, watching how the ringlet curls at the bottom just start to grab for Harry’s shoulders.

Niall shakes himself out of staring at Harry and follows him to the door.

“D’ya need help moving stuff?”

“Yeah, that’d be nice,” Harry smiles over his shoulder. “Got a car load of stuff downstairs.”

Niall hopes that Harry doesn’t notice when he stares at his new roommate’s tanned, tattooed arms as they flex when he picks up heavy boxes full of textbooks and knick-knacks to bring inside. He never asks if he notices, anyway.

Niall thinks that living with Harry is great, honestly. Harry is keen to make friends with Niall and doesn’t mind when Niall invites Louis or Liam over to play video games or study, so Niall doesn’t mind so much when Harry brings some of his friends over to do the same. He trusts that Harry knows good people and that he won’t let anything happen to Niall’s tv or xbox when he isn’t around to witness it, and that’s really all that Niall has to protect anyway.

There’s one odd thing that Niall notices about Harry only a few weeks into living together. It isn’t a deal breaker by any means, and for the most part it’s harmless, but...Harry talks in his sleep.

Niall takes classes that start earlier than Harry, so it’s very rare that he’s the second of the pair to go to sleep at night. However, Harry is much more fond of naps and can seemingly fall asleep at any given time if his eyes are closed for long enough. It’s midday when Niall first hears him chattering away to himself.

“No, Gem,” Harry says first. Niall looks over his shoulder to see if Harry is on the phone with his sister again--they talk a couple of times a week, which Niall thinks is a bit weird because he couldn’t even fathom calling his brother up for a chat, but he notices almost immediately that Harry is tucked away in his bed, and his phone is sitting on the desk beside him.

“Harry? You talking to yourself, bud?” Niall teases, turning to face Harry’s side of the room.

“Don’t wanna,” Harry mumbles in response. “It’s no fun.”

Niall starts to question him again, but then an alarm goes off on Harry’s phone and his eyes snap open. Harry doesn’t say anything, just groans, smacking at his phone until the alarm goes off.

Niall blinks a couple of times, watching as Harry pulls his blankets over his head and huffs at himself for a moment before kicking the blankets off so he can get up.

“Did you know that you talk in your sleep?” Niall asks as Harry is pulling his shoes on. He swears that Harry blushes, but it’s hard to tell as he’s turning back to his desk so as to seem nonchalant about having been watching Harry for the past five minutes.

“I’ve been told I’m quite a noisy sleeper--snoring, talking, whining, all that.”

 _Well, it’s true,_ Niall thinks to himself, but he doesn’t say it as Harry picks up his bag and leaves. He doesn’t think anything of it for a few more weeks until he wakes up in the middle of the night to pee and hears Harry saying his name.

“ _Niall_ ,” he whines. “Come _back_ , Niall.”

“H?” Niall asks, again, like the first time, unsure if Harry was actually asleep or not--for all he knew, maybe Harry was warning them that their en suite was flooded, or something like that.

“Niall.” Harry whines and turns onto his side facing the wall. His words become jumbled and incoherent. Niall shrugs it off and goes to the bathroom, and Harry’s completely silent when he comes back.

He doesn’t bother asking Harry what he was dreaming in the morning.

Nor does he the next time he hears his name come out of Harry’s sleeping mouth, or the next, or...well, he does actually does the time after _that_.

Niall thinks what he hears Harry say must be his own fault. He’s not _upset_ by any means, but...it’s something he’s sure he’s not meant to hear.

On _The Morning_ of _The Night_ in which Niall hears what he isn’t supposed to, he makes breakfast for Harry--microwaved oatmeal--because he knows that Harry doesn’t like to go to his English classes on an empty stomach (“ _because I can’t focus if my stomach is yelling at me the whole time!”_ ), and he knows that Harry will show up five minutes late _again_ because he sleeps in just a tad too long every morning to make his own breakfast. This isn’t the first time he’s done this for Harry--in fact, he’s been doing it most Tuesdays and Thursdays for the past couple of weeks.

Niall wakes Harry up just a minute before his annoying alarm would by handing him hot food and ruffling his hair until he sits up. Sometimes it takes longer than others. Sometimes--very rarely, but sometimes--Niall employs the method of lying on top of Harry until the weight of his body makes Harry peek an eye open to see what’s going on. It puts a smile on his face first thing in the morning, which puts both of them in a good mood for the rest of the day.

Now, for lunch that day, Niall happens to see Harry eating alone in the dining hall. He himself has gotten a to-go box and was _planning_ to go sit by the soccer fields to watch his friends practice, but Harry spots him and waves him over, and Niall isn’t very good at saying no to him.

Niall can’t help it when he stares at Harry’s mouth when he’s telling stories about the funny encounters he has at work or the furrow in his brows when he’s trying to understand something from his textbook. Harry’s cute, Niall’s not gonna lie about it, and he’s open and honest and funny in a God awful way, and Niall is...well, more than he should be, smitten.

“I don’t have class until 2,” Harry says, prompting Niall to check his watch for the time.

“It’s only 12:50. What are you going to do in the meantime?”

“Well, I was gonna sit here and people watch, but if you’re staying, I’ll talk to you.” Harry smiles a knowing smile, and Niall knows he’ll be stuck there with Harry until they decide to leave--Niall’s class doesn’t start until 2 either, but he doesn’t need to tell Harry that because he already knows.

(“It’s important to know each other’s schedules,” he defends himself whenever Niall asks him how he knows what class he’s in. “What if something happens to you on your way back from Psych? If I know you’re supposed to be back around 3:30 but you’re _not_ , I’ll know to go looking for you.”

Niall thinks it’s endearing.)

“This dining room is closing, lovebirds,” Zayn, one of Harry’s casual friends from one of his Literature class, teases around 1:45. Harry turns pink and tries to scramble for something to say as a smirk spreads across Zayn’s face.

“Don’t worry, we’re on our way to class anyway, right, H?”

Niall slides out of the booth and puts his backpack on while Harry stares up at him in awe.

“Uh, yeah, we should get going.”

Niall doesn’t have to walk Harry into his building and up to the second floor to his classroom, but he does anyway. Harry smiles at him and gives him this cute little wave as he walks away, and if Niall didn’t have to bolt across the street to his bio lecture, he would stand there and think about how cute Harry looked.

The pair go to the dining hall for dinner that night, and instead of going straight back to their room, they decide to take a detour and walk across campus. Niall doesn’t go out at night much, but Harry _swears_ that the hangout garden in the center of the art building is even cooler when you can lay down on the gazebo and look up at the stars.

He’s right, of course, and Niall loves it.

They spend hours out there talking about their shared love of space, astrology (as silly as it is), things that scare them, things they love, and it’s _so nice_ that Niall almost forgets they’re in the middle of a college campus.

Well, that is until a group of what Harry calls Dude-Bros burst out of the art building, tripping over themselves, leaving the door to slam shut and disrupt the peace.

“Look, a couple of fags,” one of them jokes to the others, nudging his friends and pointing at Niall and Harry. Niall sits up and glares at them. Harry only gives them a glance.

Thankfully, they go on without incident.

“Guys like that piss me off,” Niall says through gritted teeth. He anxiously rubs his palms over his thighs and tries to crane his neck to see around the corner to make sure they’ve gone.

“They’re all a little gay,” Harry shrugs, slowly sitting up. “What do you think they were doing in the only unlocked public building on campus? Photography, some blowjobs, bit of male figure painting. I’ve seen ‘em do it before when I was looking for somewhere warm to study at the end of last semester after the library closed.”

“Are you serious?” Niall laughs. Harry smiles and chuckles out a small “yeah” on a puff of cold air. They can both see their breath.

“We should go back to the dorm,” Niall suggests, standing up. Harry agrees and follows, and it only takes a few steps for Niall to notice that Harry is shivering.

“Told you you should have worn a jacket,” he tsks as he sheds his own coat from his shoulders. He was plenty warm in his t-shirt and hoodie, anyway. Harry had only worn a light sweater.

“Thanks.” Harry takes the jacket with a sheepish look, but he doesn’t protest. The warmth is welcome to him as he bundles up, burying his hands in the pockets and pulling the fuzzy hood up around his face. Niall can’t watch his cheeks and nose turn pink, but at least Harry stays warm.

It doesn’t take long after they’ve gone back to their room for Harry to go to sleep. Actually, it takes less than 20 minutes. Niall had just enough time to compile of his assignments that would be due in the next week when he heard the first melody from Harry’s side of the room.

 _Is he--_ Niall thought. _No fuckin’ way this kid is singing in his sleep._

There are no words to the tune, no matter how carefully Niall tries to listen for them, but he’d be damned if Harry wasn’t actually singing in his sleep.

“This is amazing,” Niall mumbles to himself, picking up his phone. “One for Snapchat for sure.”

It doesn’t take but three seconds after Niall starts recording for Harry to stop singing, and of course Niall should have expected it what with all the instances of situational irony he’s experienced in his life, but he doesn’t stop recording _just in case,_ and boy is he glad he did that because what Harry does next is something Niall does  _not_ expect.

“He’s my boyfriend,” Harry whines. “ _Niall_ is. Miss my Niall _._ ”

“You’re fucking joking,” Niall gasps under his breath.

“Like to kiss him,” Harry sighs. “My favorite.”

Niall stops recording after that and gets into bed. He isn’t really sure why he does it--maybe he’s dreaming, right?--but Harry keeps mumbling under his breath until Niall’s slow breathing drowns it out as he falls asleep.

Harry wakes up without an alarm the next morning while Niall is waiting for his coffee to brew. He doesn’t make a move to get out of bed, instead he watches Niall walk back and forth from his desk to their makeshift kitchen area. Niall is making Harry’s oatmeal again.

“Good morning,” Harry says. It feels more like a croak to him, though, morning voice still almost too thick to speak through.

“Oh, hey.” Niall jumps the slightest bit when the microwave beeps at him, not _really_ because it startled him, but because his attention being split between Harry and getting ready for class ruins his awareness.

“Is that for me?”

Niall smiles and hopes that Harry can hear him rolling his eyes (‘cause he know Harry can’t see them as he turns around to get a spoon from under the sink).

“No, I’ve decided I suddenly like to eat the oatmeal that I make for you _most days_ now.”

“You’re such a good roommate,” Harry grins, bearing both teeth and dimples. Niall hands over the cup once Harry sits up, and then he hovers at the bedside trying to think of something funny to say, but instead he blurts,

“Did you dream about me last night?”

Niall thinks he sees Harry’s eyes widen. He definitely chews a little slower than normal trying to think of how to wriggle his way out of the question.

“Um...why do you ask?”

Niall shrugs.

“I heard you saying some stuff.”

Harry blushes, and Niall, never the one to want to make someone uncomfortable, backs off to his side of the room.

“Also mentioned a boyfriend,” Niall calls over his shoulder as he leaves the room. “Think his name was Niall.”

zzz

Harry isn’t in their room when Niall gets back from class that afternoon, and as much as he tries not to panic about it, he thinks it might be his fault for teasing Harry that morning. He thinks about sending a text to ask if Harry is alright, but that just seems insincere, and then he considers waiting for Harry to come back, because he _has_ to come back eventually, but he’s so hungry by 8 o’clock that he gives up and goes to the dining hall.

A lucky move, really. Harry’s sitting off in a corner booth all alone when Niall gets there, knees pulled up into the seat beside him, book balancing precariously on top of them.

“I’ve been wondering where you went off to,” Niall says, sliding into the seat across from his roommate.

Harry looks like a deer in headlights, honestly.

“I, um, just, uh...been around.”

“Didn’t wanna come back to the room? You know Louis hasn’t been coming around much lately, it would have been quiet enough for you to read in there.”

Harry looks sheepish when he admits that he was too anxious to go back to their room. Niall knows exactly what he’s referring to, and though his heartbeat picks up because he’s nervous for this conversation too, he plays it as cool as he can.

“What do you mean?”

“Nothi--”

“About this morning, right? Your sleep talking?”

“How am I supposed to sleep around you ever again?” he whines. “Niall, I promise I didn’t _mean_ to call you my boyfriend, I was asleep, you know? I don’t have any control over it.”

“It’s okay,” Niall chuckles, looking down at his plate. “It was cute.”

There’s a silence over them for a couple of minutes in which Niall eats and looks around the room, and Harry stares at him, silently begging for clarification but not being able to ask for it.

“What’re you reading?”

 _“Niall_.” Harry sounds like he’s insisting something even though he hasn’t asked for anything. Niall feigns innocence, dropping his mouth open and widening his eyes.

“ _Whaaat_? I didn’t do anything.”

“You said it was cute.”

They’re staring at each other now, for the most part unblinking--it seems really weird looking in on, surely, but for a moment they forget where they are.

“It was. You called me your boyfriend, said you missed me and stuff...said you wanna kiss me.”

“ _No_.” Harry gasps; he looks _absolutely_ mortified.

“ _Yes_ ,” Niall laughs, “and it was cute, so don’t worry about it.”

“Wait, so do you like…?”

“Can we go back to our room, Sleeping Beauty? I’ve got some homework to do before bed.”

Harry knocks out as soon as his head hits the pillow. Niall makes sure to ponder over a funny caption about this boy missing his afternoon beautyrest before he posts a picture of Harry’s smushed cheeks and fishy lips on his snapchat story with one little green heart down in the corner.

Niall’s only mildly disappointed that he didn’t get to talk to Harry about the boyfriend thing--at least, not enough to resolve the issue--but he does like hearing the cute, nonsensical phrases like “banana only ensuite” that come from Harry, so he doesn’t quite mind putting it off for another day.

There’s the smell of maple oatmeal in the morning like usual, but only, Niall’s isn’t the one who made it, it was Harry. There’s also the smell of something else, something like soap and clean laundry.

Niall opens his eyes to see Harry sitting at Niall’s desk, wet hair hanging around his face as he eats his oatmeal and scrolls through his phone.

“What’re you doing?” Niall croaks out, rubbing his eyes with the back of his knuckles.

“Waiting for you,” Harry says, turning towards Niall, leaving his phone alone on the desk. “I, um...I would have made you breakfast too but I know you don’t like oatmeal, so...but um, I just...I wanted to talk about last night, you know? But as I was sitting here,” he smirks, “I heard _you_ mumbling in your sleep. Who’s the weirdo now?”

“I never said you were a weirdo,” Niall chuckles, reaching out to pinch at Harry’s side, “all I said is what _you_ said while _you_ were sleeping.”

“I dreamt about you again last night…” Harry admits softly, laying his head down on one of his folded arms atop Niall’s desk. They’re more or less face to face this way. It’s an interesting way to look at someone, and Niall realizes he’s never seen Harry so intimately.

“Oh, yeah?” Niall starts softly, but he feels his lips curving into a smirk before he can stop himself from spoiling the moment. “Thought I heard you moaning. That makes sense.”

Harry looks positively _scandalized_ as he gasps and whips his head up.

“I was _not!_ ”

“Mm, maybe you weren’t. I wouldn’t have minded.”

Niall smiles fondly looking on as Harry’s cheeks turn pink.

“You’re a tease, you know that?”

“You still like me, though,” comes Niall’s rebuttal.

“And you still like me even though I talk in my sleep,” Harry adds carefully as though he isn’t sure he’s right for saying it.

Niall smiles and tugs on his arm.

“Why don’t you lay down with me? It’s Saturday, don’t wanna get out of bed.”

If they stay in bed most of the day making out and testing the waters of being more than roommates, well, this is Niall’s favorite calculated adventure so far, so that sounds about right.


End file.
